Phone-hack private eye can appeal over human rights ruling

Victory: Mulcaire was granted permission to appeal by the Supreme Court

THE private investigator at the centre of the phone hacking scandal was today granted the right by the Supreme Court to appeal against a ruling that he cannot refuse to answer questions that might incriminate him further.

Three Appeal Court judges had this month unanimously rejected Glenn Mulcaire's human rights argument on self-incrimination. But the Supreme Court today gave him permission for a full appeal on May 9 and 10.

One High Court judge and the three Appeal Court judges had all said it was not a breach of his human rights to make Mulcaire give information that might be used against him later.

Mulcaire, 41, from Sutton, is being sued alongside News Group News-papers, which has admitted and apologised for hacking into the phones of celebrities and others.

The now-defunct News of the World's ex-Royal Correspondent Clive Goodman was jailed for four months for paying Mulcaire £12,300 to access to voicemail messages of members of the royal household. Mulcaire, who also pleaded guilty, got six months.

The latest legal move came as News International boss Rupert Murdoch was expected to arrive in London tomorrow to take charge of the crisis in his empire - amid further splits.

Executives on The Sun and The Times are incensed at the decision by parent company News Corporation to give Scotland Yard details of reporters' confidential sources.

Ten senior Sun journalists and executives have been arrested on suspicion of bribing public officials after a committee which reports to NewsCorp directors in New York passed internal emails and NI documents to police.

Today NI sources said journalists are discussing an approach to leading QC Geoffrey Robertson.In an opinion piece in The Times today, Mr Robertson wrote: "By revealing journalistic sources, the committee is not so much 'draining the swamp', as one member described it, as throwing the baby out with the bath water."